Cholesterol pill takes prevention to ‘new level’

Cholesterol pill takes prevention to ‘new level’

NEW ORLEANS — People with low cholesterol and no big risk for heart disease had dramatically lower rates of heart attacks, death and stroke if they took the cholesterol pill Crestor, a large study found.

The results, reported Sunday at an American Heart Association conference, were hailed as a watershed event in heart disease prevention. Doctors said the study might lead as many as 7 million more Americans to consider taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, sold as Crestor, Lipitor, Zocor or in generic form.

“This takes prevention to a whole new level, because it applies to patients who we now wouldn’t have any evidence to treat,” said Dr. W. Douglas Weaver, a Detroit cardiologist and president of the American College of Cardiology.

Study: Headphones, defibrillator don’t mix

NEW ORLEANS — Have a pacemaker or an implanted defibrillator? Don’t keep your iPod earbuds in your shirt pocket or draped around your neck — even when they’re disconnected. A study finds that some headphones can interfere with heart devices if held very close to them.

They might even prevent a defibrillator from delivering a lifesaving shock, say doctors who tested them.

“Headphones contain magnets, and some of these magnets are powerful,” said the study’s leader, Dr. William Maisel, a cardiologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and a heart device consultant to the federal Food and Drug Administration.

“I certainly don’t think people should overreact to this information,” but it’s smart to keep small electronics at least a few inches from implanted medical devices, and not let someone wearing headphones lean against your chest if you have one, he said.

Searching for victims

PETIONVILLE, Haiti — Angry Haitians stormed the twisted wreckage of a collapsed school on Sunday to demand rescuers speed up a search for victims, while officials worried about the stability of other buildings across this desperately poor country.

The collapse, which crushed at least 88 pupils and adults in a slum below a relatively wealthy enclave near Port-au-Prince, has brought global attention to a country where chronic poverty and unrest spawn chaotic jigsaws of neighborhoods and building codes are widely ignored.

President Rene Preval, who has made several visits to the disaster site, blamed continual government turnover and a lack of respect for the law for the deadly collapse at the College La Promesse.

Bombs in Iraq kill at least 8

BAGHDAD — Bombs killed at least eight people Sunday across Iraq and wounded dozens of others, officials said. Syria’s president blamed the U.S. military presence for Iraq’s instability and called on U.S. troops to leave.

In the northern city of Mosul, a roadside bomb ripped through an Iraqi army patrol soon after sundown, killing three soldiers and wounding four others, police said.

U.S. and Iraqi troops have been fighting for months to clear al-Qaida in Iraq and about a dozen other Sunni insurgent groups from Mosul, Iraq’s third largest city.

To the south, a bomb attached to a bike wrapped in a trash bag exploded outside a cafe in Khalis, 50 miles north of Baghdad, killing at least two people and wounding 13, including the city mayor, police said.

Outbreak of cholera

KIBATI, Congo — Doctors struggled Sunday to contain an outbreak of cholera in a sprawling refugee camp near Congo’s eastern provincial capital of Goma, as renewed fighting ignited fears that patients could scatter and launch an epidemic.

Congolese soldiers and rebels were seen less than 800 yards apart near Goma, where rebel leader Laurent Nkunda declared a cease-fire on Oct. 29 as his forces reached the edge of the city.

Rebels and soldiers clashed Thursday just north of the Kibati refugee camp, seven miles from Goma, and soldiers who retreated last week were digging in Sunday at a new front line.

Some 50,000 refugees have crowded around Kibati, some taken into log cabins by villagers, others living in tents or hastily built beehive-shaped huts. Thousands who sleep out in the open huddled under plastic sheeting Sunday as curtains of rain pounded down.

Doctors Without Borders said it treated 13 new cases of cholera in Kibati on Sunday and has seen 45 cases since Friday.

Associated Press